How much time and effort had it taken to draw a star map like this? How many dangers had it gone through? How many lives had been paid for it?
Just from the danger ratings beside those stars and the detailed markings, everyone present could see clearly what a terrible price had been paid to complete this map of the heavens. And now such a hard‑won star map, containing endless treasures, was being given away so casually?
No one could believe it.
After Bao Gu respectfully cupped her hands and bowed, she said,
“I’ve disturbed you for many days. I’m deeply grateful. This is where we part.”
When she finished, she turned her head and called to Ba,
“Qingying, let’s go.”
She turned to walk out. Only then did everyone come back to their senses.
Xuan Yi hurriedly called out,
“Wait!”
She strode out of the hall to block Bao Gu and said,
“A gift this weighty—how can we possibly accept it?”
Bao Gu said,
“Once we return to the Wasteland Heaven Realm, this star map will be useless to us. Since we’re of the same War King bloodline, leaving it with you is putting it to proper use—and doing what we can to strengthen the War King Clan.”
Xuan Yi froze for a moment, then asked,
“You never thought of selling this star map?”
Bao Gu smiled faintly.
“What I could get by selling this map can all be mined directly from these stars. If I wanted to ‘sell’ it, wouldn’t it be easier to just teleport my mining ships to the corresponding stars and have them stay a few days?”
Xuan Yi was left speechless.
She could only say bluntly,
“This star map is too precious. The War King Manor is ashamed to accept it.”
“Then treat it as a favor you owe me,” Bao Gu said.
She paused, thought for a moment, then asked,
“Does the War King Manor have any Five‑Element Immortal Stones? The boundary‑breaking domain gate of the Wasteland Heaven Realm has completely collapsed, and there are no more Five‑Element Immortal Stones to mine there.”
Xuan Yi’s eyes lit up.
“We do. How many do you need?”
Bao Gu calculated briefly, then reported the size, grade, and quantity she required.
Xuan Yi thought for a moment.
“Wait here a bit.”
She made a “please” gesture and invited Bao Gu back into the hall, then explained Bao Gu’s request for Five‑Element Immortal Stones to the elders of the War King Manor.
The elders exchanged a few concise opinions, then told Bao Gu,
“Give us half a day. We’ll gather all the stones you need.”
Bao Gu nodded and cupped her hands.
“Then I’ll be in your debt.”
She was invited to a side hall for tea. Xuan Yi and a few elders stayed to accompany her; Lord Xuantian and two elders went to mobilize the Immortal Stones.
Sitting in the side hall, Xuan Yi said,
“I’ve heard the Wasteland Heaven Realm has seen no ascended immortals for seventy or eighty thousand years. Any immortals, cultivators, or great powers who went there from the Borderless Realm were never heard from again. What kind of place is the Wasteland Heaven Realm? Why has there been no ascension for so long?”
Bao Gu said,
“The Wasteland Heaven Realm is heavily suppressed by the Heavenly Dao. The highest cultivation anyone can reach is the Void Tearing Stage. Before I left, I had never seen or even heard of a Tribulation Stage cultivator. Most cultivators are stuck at Nascent Soul. Stepping into Divine Transformation already makes you a standout. Anyone who reaches Void Tearing becomes a powerhouse who can go anywhere in the world.
“On top of that, the boundary‑breaking domain gate there shattered tens of thousands of years ago. Even if someone did become an immortal, there would be no gate for them to ascend through.”
Xuan Yi sighed.
“If that’s the case, why not stay? If you return to the Wasteland Heaven Realm, you might be distancing yourself from your chance at immortality.”
Bao Gu shook her head lightly. Her movement was soft, but her attitude was unshakable.
Seeing this, Xuan Yi didn’t try to persuade her further. After hesitating a bit, she asked,
“May I ask… your disciple’s background?”
From the conversation between Bao Gu and Qingying earlier, she had heard that their master‑disciple relationship was far from ordinary.
Ba sat next to Bao Gu, head lowered, absent‑mindedly playing with her own fingers. Hearing Xuan Yi’s question, she rolled her eyes and snorted,
“What’s it to you where I’m from?”
Xuan Yi was choked for a moment. She instinctively glanced at Bao Gu, only to see Bao Gu lightly touch the bridge of her nose, then sweep a look at Qingying.
Ba pouted, her face full of “I really don’t feel like it.”
Less than half a day later, the War King Manor had gathered all the Five‑Element Immortal Stones Bao Gu asked for.
After accepting the Immortal Stones, Bao Gu felt it was only right to give something more in return. She allocated ten void‑crossing mining ships to the War King Manor, and only then took Ba and made her farewell.
Xuan Yi and Lord Xuantian escorted them out. Before they reached the main gates of the War King Manor, the sky overhead suddenly darkened. Looking up, they saw layers of clouds boiling, blotting out the sun, killing intent rolling like a tide. Vaguely, war banners flickered in and out of sight within the black clouds.
War King Manor guards rushed over to report that large numbers of Barbarian Clan armored troops were surging toward the manor.
Xuan Yi frowned and decisively ordered the manor to prepare for battle, while continuing to send Bao Gu on her way.
Bao Gu’s brows also furrowed tightly.
She figured the Barbarians were still coming for the grudge from earlier today. She had wanted to let the matter rest, but looking at the Barbarians’ current posture, it seemed they had no intention of swallowing their pride. Thinking about it, that made sense. In front of so many eyes, she had killed one of their powerhouses and then pressed an entire army up to their city to threaten them. If the Barbarians now silently swallowed this humiliation without making a sound, how would other factions view them? Once everyone decided the Barbarians could be bullied, they would all step on them. That would mean endless trouble.
Besides, the strength and formation she’d shown earlier were nowhere near enough to force the Barbarian Clan—the number one power in this Barbarian Wilderness Realm—to bow its head. In overall strength, the War King Manor couldn’t compare to the Barbarians at all. In terms of population or innate physique, the humans of this realm were weaker than the Barbarians.
If she left now, she would just be dumping trouble on the War King Manor.
Bao Gu’s mind was full of getting home as soon as possible. “Going home” was within reach, only to be disrupted by this Barbarian incident, which made her deeply irritable. Power struggles, killing one only to stir up a whole nest—she’d long since grown sick of that.
Her voice went cold.
“Xuan Yi, go deliver a message to the Barbarians. If they still don’t know what’s good for them, I’ll erase the Barbarian Dao inheritance from this realm.”
Everyone from the War King Manor stared at Bao Gu in shock, looking at her as if she were cracking a joke.
Bao Gu asked,
“You don’t believe me?”
Xuan Yi nodded, very honestly.
“You just arrived in this realm, so you may not know. This realm is called the Barbarian Wilderness Realm. ‘Barbarian Wilderness’ refers to the Barbarian Clan.”
“I know,” Bao Gu said. “I never joke.”
As they were speaking, another guard rushed over to report that the Barbarians had already encircled the War King Manor, demanding they hand over Bao Gu, and insisting the manor give an explanation for today’s events.
Bao Gu used her Shrink the Earth to Inches divine ability and in a few steps arrived at the manor’s main gate.
There, the gates were tightly shut. Inside, guards stood in full battle formation, protecting the gate like an iron barrel. War King Manor cultivators were arrayed in military formations across the main courtyard. Battle could break out at any moment.
The main doors were barred; Bao Gu couldn’t get out.
She turned to a nearby commander in charge of the gate and said to open it. At such a critical moment, there was no way a mere guest’s order would be followed. The commander refused her firmly but politely.
Ba slanted a cool glance at him, then lifted her leg and kicked hard at the War King Manor’s main gate.
A thunderous boom erupted, followed by the resonant hum of a formation shaking. The massive gate—several zhang high and as thick as a city wall—was blasted into the sky, whirling as it spun with a series of heavy whooshing sounds, then crashed down with a roar. After scaring a flock of bystanders into scattering, it smashed into the ground, carving out a huge pit, and ended up standing upright in that crater.
Not only was the gate gone, but the thick stone walls on both sides, as thick as city fortifications, had also partially collapsed under the violent force, leaving the War King Manor’s entrance completely open.
Outside was a sea of Barbarian troops stretching to the horizon, black and dense. A violent, suffocating blood‑reek of killing intent crashed in like a wave.
In front of the Barbarian army stood rows of siege engines aimed at the gate, ready to launch a full assault—only to find the gate had already been blasted out from the inside.
Bao Gu stepped out of the War King Manor at an unhurried pace and stood before the Barbarian army. Expression freezing over, she sent out a voice transmission.
“Whoever has the authority to speak for the Barbarian Clan—come out and talk.”
As she spoke, her gaze was drawn to something not far off: a magnificent, peerless carriage set within the army’s formation. It glowed with spiritual radiance; auspicious clouds and rosy light coiled around it like an immortal palace in miniature.
A layer of faint mist wrapped the carriage. At a glance it seemed very close, but when she focused to see the person inside or pinpoint its position, it seemed impossibly far. With one look, she judged that even if it wasn’t an immortal artifact, it was at least an Earth Immortal‑grade treasure, higher than Mahayana‑level magic tools.
A cold, harsh voice drifted down from the sky.
“Those who offend my Barbarian Clan… must die!”
The atmosphere among the War King Manor’s troops was as heavy as it could get. The bowstring was taut; the arrow was all but loosed.
One after another, powerhouses whose cultivation Bao Gu couldn’t see suddenly appeared in midair before the manor gates, forming a straight line—more than thirty of them. The one she’d seen before who’d called himself Xuan Cheng was among them, standing somewhere near the back.
A white‑haired elder stepped out of their ranks and said,
“The War King Manor and the Barbarian Clan have coexisted in peace for many years. Barbarian King, why press us so hard today? We’re all straightforward people—speak plainly.”
The Barbarian King’s voice was cold.
“In full view of all, you killed one of my clan. What can the War King Manor possibly say to that?”
At that moment, Bao Gu received a message from the main battleship through her voice transmission jade.
“Commander, the flagship is completely surrounded. How should we proceed?”
She replied,
“Activate the defensive formations and hold position.”
When she finished, she cut the connection, then fixed a cold gaze on the Barbarian King’s carriage.
“To seize the Void Spirit Divine Tree… you lot are far from qualified.”
The people of the War King Manor all stared at her again, eyes changing once more.
A cold snort came from within the Barbarian King’s carriage, and immediately afterward, all of the Barbarian soldiers’ weapons lifted as one, pointing at Bao Gu.
Bao Gu said icily,
“Think this through. Once this war starts, the consequences won’t be something you can bear.”
The only response she got was the Barbarian army launching a full‑scale charge.
The Barbarian forces, surging like a boundless tide, formed up into battle formations and unleashed an overwhelming barrage at Bao Gu and the War King Manor.
The War King Manor’s shield‑and‑armor formation activated in an instant, forming a huge protective dome over their army. Their guards roared their battle cries, summoned their life‑bound swords, and charged along their positions in the array. The cold, sharp will to fight and sharp sword auras instantly ignited the battlelust etched into Bao Gu’s blood and bones.
For a heartbeat, she seemed to see her Xuantian Sect fellow disciples charging. The familiar sword techniques, the practiced ways of fighting—Xuantian Sect and the War King Clan truly shared a common origin.
The Barbarians and War King Manor crashed together. The radiance of clashing magic tools and the criss‑crossing sword energy wove into a single field of slaughter. In an instant, blood sprayed, and people began to fall.
The War King Manor detached a squad of their strongest to form a ring around Bao Gu.
Xuan Yi shouted again and again,
“Bao Gu, go!”
She yelled orders at the top of her lungs.
“Protect Bao Gu and get her out of here!”
A squad of Barbarian powerhouses charged straight at Bao Gu. The War King guards protecting her kept falling, one after another.
The War King Manor had no way of stopping such an impact. Guards died ceaselessly.
Xuan Yi knew that, based on the War King Manor’s strength, they couldn’t withstand this Barbarian offensive at all. The difference in numbers alone was a fatal flaw.
She saw Bao Gu standing motionless in place like a wooden statue, seemingly stunned with fear, and snapped in fury,
“What are you still standing there for? Go! I’ll have people escort you to the boundary‑breaking gate. You go back to the Wasteland Heaven Realm!”
Bao Gu summoned the Xuantian Sword into her hand.
Her cold voice rang out.
“Qingying, don’t let a single Barbarian above Tribulation Stage escape.”
Ba had known Bao Gu for many years and had never seen her like this.
Indifferent and icy, with a faint, overwhelming aura of slaughter—yet mixed with some emotion she couldn’t name. This version of Bao Gu made her uneasy, as if Bao Gu had suddenly grown very far away from her, impossibly far.
She tried to see through Bao Gu, but Bao Gu’s figure had already moved, charging into battle.
The instant Bao Gu surged forward, she slipped free of the War King guards’ protective circle. Barbarian powerhouses lunged for her from all directions—but she went straight for the Barbarian King’s carriage.
Right now, Bao Gu didn’t feel like a person. She felt like a sword.
A razor‑sharp sword.
Sword energy raged and roared as if trying to tear heaven and earth apart. Her killing intent spread in all directions, cold and vast. Wherever her sword light flashed, blood burst. One after another, anyone who tried to block her was split apart or run through by the Xuantian Sword.
Each time blood soaked the blade, the sword drank it all. The blood‑drinking Xuantian Sword shone brighter and more dazzlingly with each kill, its glow fierce, its sword intent swelling higher and higher, as if it could rend the skies themselves—or as if something within it were being reborn in blood.
In that instant, Bao Gu became the single most eye‑catching point on the entire battlefield.
The sword intent and power she unleashed were utterly shocking. Her battlelust wasn’t about killing for its own sake, not about slaughter—it was as if she was born for battle, using battle to release a kind of ultimate, fatal beauty.
One Barbarian powerhouse after another engaged her, only to feel crushing pressure the moment their weapons met. A vast, unfathomable force crashed into them like towering waves from a boundless abyss, pounding and surging relentlessly. Each surge carried destruction. They were beaten back again and again.
The War King powerhouses and the Barbarian powerhouses who sensed the disturbance all unconsciously slackened their offense to look at Bao Gu—and the more they watched, the more terrified they became.
A Tribulation‑Stage early cultivator… forcing an Earth Immortal back step by step!
A Tribulation‑Stage early cultivator… chopping down Tribulation‑Stage Barbarians like chopping melons, one clean stroke at a time!
Earth Immortal‑grade life‑bound treasures forged with pure Da Luo Scarlet Gold and tempered with the wielder’s soul—when they clashed head‑on with Bao Gu’s sword, they were snapped clean in two.
Then Bao Gu swung her sword again, releasing a single slash of sword intent that ripped the void in front of her apart. Every Barbarian in front of her—within the arc of that swing—was reduced to a mist of blood. More than half of that refined blood was instantly drawn into the blade in her hand.
Everyone who saw it was horrified.
Ba stared blankly at Bao Gu. When she noticed that the War God Sword was constantly harvesting lives and swallowing blood essence, she suddenly realized—the War God Sword was robbing her food!
With that realization, she rushed straight at the Barbarian Earth Immortals.
Her fighting style was nothing like Bao Gu’s blinding brilliance. It could only be described as brutally simple.
She grabbed an Earth Immortal with one hand, seized his head, and with a twist ripped his neck apart, tearing his head off. Then she slapped the still‑living skull on the crown. One palm shattered the soul, and a surge of blood‑fiend death energy sealed all seven orifices, preventing his qi and essence from dispersing. With a flip of her hand, she tossed him into the great Blood Prison World yawning open behind her.
In less than a blink, an Earth Immortal was dead and stored away as rations.
An Earth Immortal.
She snagged him from a distance, instant‑killed him, and threw him into the world behind her.
The moment Ba made her move, everyone—Barbarians, War King warriors, and even the various outside factions watching from afar—was scared stupid.
They didn’t just fear Ba’s methods.
They feared the world behind her.
To cultivate one’s own independent world and Heaven and Earth—this was the legendary Golden Immortal realm.
When a Golden Immortal proved the Dao, they manifested their own world. This meant they would not die, that they shared the lifespan of heaven and earth, and possessed an independent source of power.
When upper‑realm immortals descended in person, their true bodies would be suppressed by the Heavenly Dao and their cultivation would be forced down. So no one brought their true body down. They all descended by way of clones or soul projections, with only twenty to thirty percent of their true power—though, with immortal treasures added, even that was far stronger than an Earth Immortal. That way, the true body took almost no loss, and the clone was more than enough to handle anything below.
Bring one’s true body down?
What a joke. Might as well cripple your own cultivation.
Yet now, they were actually looking at one.
Someone who not only possessed a Golden Immortal’s independent world, but judging from that suffocating aura, likely still retained Golden Immortal‑level strength.
And that world she’d cultivated—anyone could tell at a glance it wasn’t something righteous or gentle. What orthodox cultivator would create a Blood Prison World? How much blood, how many lives, how many karmic sins did it take to build that?
The very next instant, the Barbarian King’s carriage was shattered beneath a single slap from Ba.
The Barbarian King’s figure exploded out of the wreckage into the sky, ready to flee, when a giant hand descended from above and pinched him up like a chick.
Then he appeared before Ba.
Her slender, pale fingers closed around his neck and wrenched.
His head flew, body and head parting ways.
Then she smashed his skull, obliterating his soul. Before the shattered soul and spiritual power could dissipate, she sealed them, locked away all of his blood and power, then tossed him onto the hill of corpses already piled up behind her, making him just one more Earth Immortal corpse among many.
The remaining Barbarian Earth Immortals finally reacted.
This one was specifically targeting Earth Immortals! Every move she made wiped out another one!
Run.
All the Earth Immortals on the field turned and fled in all directions.
Ba froze.
You’re all running in different directions—how am I supposed to chase you?
She yelled,
“Hey! Get back here! I don’t have enough rations yet, don’t run!”
She stomped a foot and took off in pursuit. Catch one, twist off the neck, kill, and throw him into the Blood Prison World. Then she looked back and saw the others fleeing even faster in the opposite direction.
She shouted, desperate,
“Don’t run! I haven’t eaten an Earth Immortal in tens of thousands of years!”
She really was anxious. Her cheap master, that stingy one, had finally allowed her to kill, and Bao Gu was killing even more gleefully than she was. If she didn’t take this chance to stockpile as many of the tastiest Earth Immortal rations as possible, when would she ever get another shot?
The more she yelled, the faster the Earth Immortals ran, each using every escape technique they had to evade her.
Once the Earth Immortals fled, the Mahayana and Tribulation‑Stage cultivators followed suit.
Then the entire Barbarian army collapsed in an instant and scattered in wild flight.
Seeing the Earth Immortals almost all gone, Ba hastily scooped up a few Mahayana “half‑immortal” types for consolation. When she wanted to grab a few more, she realized that only slow, weaker Divine Transformation cultivators were left.
She was still disdainfully thinking that Divine Transformation realm meat was too low‑grade when even those cultivators had all run.
She smacked herself on the forehead.
“Idiot. How did I forget to seal them all first, then slowly haul them into the Blood Prison World? If they’re sealed, they can’t run even if they want to!”
Bao Gu realized something was off. Looking around mid‑strike, she suddenly found the area around her empty.
The only ones left were War King Manor guards, staring in one direction with horrified, dumbstruck faces.
She followed their gaze and saw Ba’s Blood Prison World wide open, a hill of corpses already piled up inside. Ba herself was standing there, smacking her own forehead in frustration and muttering to herself.
Bao Gu paused, then understood.
With Ba making a move, these Barbarians weren’t even enough to wedge between her teeth.
She put away the Xuantian Sword, walked over to Ba, and said,
“Let’s go.”
Ba was not happy.
“I can… I can still go drag them back.”
She quickly added,
“I don’t mind the hard work.”
Her eyes drifted wistfully toward the “food stash” behind her. So little…
Bao Gu considered for a moment.
“I’ll give you one day. Listen carefully: you’re only allowed to target Barbarians.”
Ba’s face broke into a grin.
She answered crisply, “Okay!”
Her legs kicked off the ground and she shot into the sky, disappearing in a heartbeat.
Xuan Yi walked up beside Bao Gu, staring at her in shock.
“I finally understand how you managed to survive out there in the boundless starry sky…”
She added, baffled,
“There’s one thing I still don’t understand. Why are you not suppressed by the Heavenly Dao’s laws? How can you retain combat power beyond this lower realm’s limits?”
Bao Gu said,
“Being suppressed by the Heavenly Dao doesn’t mean you can’t cultivate back up again.”
She inclined her head slightly to Xuan Yi, then turned and walked toward the boundary‑breaking domain gate at the city center.
Xuan Yi hurried to catch up, trying to persuade her to stay. Even if Bao Gu refused to remain in the War King Manor long‑term, at least stay as their honored guest for the day her “cheap disciple” was out hunting Barbarian Earth Immortals.
Bao Gu shook her head.
“No.”
She flew on the wind toward the boundary‑breaking domain gate. When she saw Xuan Yi still following, she stopped and said,
“Xuan Yi, don’t follow me.”
“It won’t delay you,” Xuan Yi insisted.
“I understand what you’re thinking,” Bao Gu said. “But I’m not in a good state right now. I need some quiet.”
A trace of desolation and confusion passed through her expression.
“From the moment I stepped into the cultivation world, every time I appear, it always leads to bloodshed.”
Just now, she had clearly felt that she could draw out even more terrifying power from the Xuantian Sword, as if something in her blood were awakening. At the same time, endless sword intent and slaughter surged up.
She was tired of killing, tired of conflict. But she possessed a killing heart.
Her emotions were growing fewer and fewer. She didn’t know whether these changes came from the influence of the Xuantian Sword—or from experience.
That scared her.
At this moment she wanted desperately for Yu Mi to stand in front of her. In front of Yu Mi, she was just Bao Gu, an ordinary person with seven emotions and six desires.
She also wanted to ask her Master’s wife for guidance, because her Master’s wife knew the Xuantian Sword better than anyone alive.
She knew that to gain, one must pay. She was afraid that while gaining the Xuantian Sword’s power, she would lose herself.
She rode the wind to the domain gate at the city’s heart and stepped onto the long stairway leading up.
The lines of the formation glowed along the steps, seeming to resonate with the unseen yet omnipresent Heavenly Dao. With every step she took, some strange energy flowed between her and the stair.
Step by step she climbed.
Suddenly, faces began to surface in her mind: Yu Mi, Little Martial Aunt, Holy Aunt, Grandmaster, Master’s Wife, her teacher Zhuo Wangchuan, the faces of her fellow disciples—each one clear and vivid, appearing in front of her and then dissolving into another set of faces.
Faces of those who had died under her sword.
Then she saw a sky full of blood, roaring seas of gore, and faces floating up and down in that sea. Each one told of the sins she’d committed in the past.
The steps under her feet turned to blood, streaming down in crimson torrents. Blood‑stained hands clawed at her spotless boots and long skirt, only to be crushed under her steps.
She only knew one thing: she had to walk this path, had to reach the end, had to go back and find her senior sister.
Then she saw heavenly tribulation forming above and crashing down toward her.
She didn’t know if this was illusion or reality—until the sharp, searing pain lanced through her body. Only then did she circulate her cultivation to resist.
Lightning fell on her again and again. The mountains of corpses and seas of blood surged toward her with each strike.
She remembered what her Master’s wife had once said: those with too much blood on their hands would face the Heavenly Dao’s reckoning when they reached the Tribulation Stage.
But hadn’t she already stepped into Tribulation and survived heavenly lightning once?
Yet now, even with Bao Gu pushing the Xuantian Sword to its limits, the lightning continued to batter her, bolt after bolt, until flesh and blood flew. Her body, inside and out, was shredded.
Even with her powerful physique, she couldn’t withstand this. She no longer had the strength to fight back—she could only grit her teeth and endure.
The boundary‑breaking domain gate was also called the Ascension Platform. It was the place closest to the Heavenly Dao’s laws.
Would she be judged and slain here by the Heavenly Dao?
Bao Gu didn’t know.
She only knew that she wanted to go back. She wanted to see her senior sister. Even if she died, even if she couldn’t make it through, she wanted to die as close to her senior sister as possible.
The lightning blasted her until bone showed through her torn flesh. She couldn’t even stand. Looking up that still‑endless flight of steps, thinking that Yu Mi was waiting on the other side of the domain gate…
The pain seemed to disappear.
She dragged her broken body, crawling through the lightning.
Down below, Xuan Yi, the War King Manor, and countless people from all directions stared in horror at the Ascension Platform shrouded in blood‑red light. They watched bolt after bolt of heavenly lightning smash down. They watched the scenes the Heavenly Dao manifested in that blood light—
A blood tribulation.
From the number of strikes alone, it was clear: this was a complete set of eighty‑one bolts of heavenly lightning, a full Nine‑Nine Heavenly Blood Tribulation.
The scenes playing out within the blood light clearly displayed the sins Bao Gu had once committed. It was the Heavenly Dao’s reckoning. No one could escape it.
Very few people could survive a complete set of eighty‑one bolts. Whoever could trigger such a tribulation was always someone with a karmic sea of slaughter behind them—someone who had walked the path of proving the Dao through killing. Those who survived were monsters among monsters.
Bao Gu climbed one step at a time.
The lightning blasted her past the point of feeling pain; darkness slowly eroded her senses, but she still climbed, stubbornly.
She could feel her life slipping away. She knew that at this moment, under the heavenly tribulation, her body was no longer human, broken beyond recognition. She was almost done.
She was unwilling.
She did not want to die.
She was only one step away from going back, from seeing her senior sister.
She used the last of her strength to collapse onto the steps, staring blankly ahead. Vaguely, it seemed that after just a few more steps there would be no more staircase—that the boundary‑breaking domain gate would be right there.
So close it was within arm’s reach—yet impossibly far. She didn’t even have the strength to lift a finger.
Bao Gu stared fixedly at those last steps.
No matter what, she refused to fall here.
At last, the blood glow faded, the thunder dispersed, and vast, majestic life force poured into her shattered body from all directions.
That half‑dead form began to heal with unimaginable speed, remaking her from the inside out. Her new skin was like jade, translucent and flawless, as if condensed from the purest power in existence.
Bao Gu could clearly feel the changes in her body, as if she had stepped into a completely different level of existence.
She slowly stood and exhaled a long breath.
From an enormous storage bag she took out fresh clothes, wrapped them around herself, then walked on toward the end of the steps.
There, a colossal platform lay before her, similar in structure to a massive teleportation array. Ten gates stood arrayed upon it—one for each of the Ten Great Realms.
The Wasteland Heaven Realm’s gate was not far ahead.
A few more zhang was all it took.
She walked to the Wasteland Heaven Realm gate and used a voice transmission jade to call the flagship over.
Just then, she sensed something. Turning back, she saw Qingying appear not far behind her.
Ba hurried up to Bao Gu, staring her up and down as if seeing her for the first time.
Bao Gu asked, puzzled,
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“How are you still alive?” Ba demanded.
She couldn’t help thinking Bao Gu must have some terrifying life‑saving treasure. Otherwise how could anyone survive eighty‑one blood tribulation bolts?
Bao Gu honestly didn’t know how to answer that completely out‑of‑the‑blue question.
“We’re back,” she said instead. “Time to set off.”
Ba’s heart bled.
She hadn’t even started catching Earth Immortals yet when Bao Gu began her blood tribulation. She couldn’t do anything to help, could only squat nearby in torment and watch anxiously.
Then as soon as Bao Gu finished, without even waiting for the promised day to pass, she wanted to set off immediately.
But she’d seen Bao Gu, clearly at the verge of death just moments before, staring stubbornly at the end of these steps with a fixation even heavenly tribulation couldn’t break.
Fine.
So she’d eat a little less Earth Immortal meat. That wouldn’t kill her.
She tried to comfort herself like that, but her heart still hurt, still bled, still sulked.
Until she saw the boundary‑breaking domain gate activate.
A terrifying force tore the void apart, propping open a tunnel. The tunnel was only about a zhang across and half a zhang deep. At a glance, it looked like a door—but the “frame” was full of annihilating energies and churning forces that made even her unsure she could withstand it.
On the other side of the passage, she saw a zone of howling astral winds. The winds rushed forth—
Mm. A bit stingy on the face.
She was just about to step through when her ship, the Qingying, appeared overhead and began to descend.
Then she heard Bao Gu say,
“Qingying, we’re boarding.”
Bao Gu flew toward the Qingying instead.
“Not going back?” Ba blurted out.
As she spoke, she realized that all the surrounding warships were flying into the Qingying’s hull. She blinked, then suddenly understood.
“You’re not seriously planning to pilot my Qingying straight through the domain gate, are you?”
Her rosy lips parted in shock—and stayed open for a long moment.
Only after all the ships had docked inside the Qingying and Bao Gu still hadn’t come back down, and only after she heard Bao Gu’s voice transmission, did she accept reality.
She stared in anguish at the one‑step‑away passage, then at her ship, hesitating, struggling—only to finally slink back into the Qingying’s main control room.
There she saw Bao Gu personally seated at the core console, ordering the activation of the Qingying’s boundary‑breaking teleportation array, aligning it with the Barbarian Wilderness Realm’s domain gate passage.
Qingying imagined that this neat, one‑zhang‑wide passage was about to be forcibly ripped open to fit her own massive hull and nearly covered her face with both hands.
She did cover her face—with both hands.
She really didn’t dare watch.
The Qingying’s defensive formations flared to full power. The boundary‑breaking teleportation array spun up to its limit. The released power twisted space itself; even the domain gate’s original passage warped into a pitch‑black corridor that devoured even light.
The Qingying, a behemoth big enough to blot out the sky, charged into that dark passage. An invisible force seemed to shrink it as it approached; by the time it reached the entrance, it looked no bigger than a palm.
It slipped smoothly through, then plunged into a layer of chaotic astral wind.
Not losing any momentum, it punched through the astral layer and came to a sudden halt in the clouds above a vast expanse of green.
In the main control chamber, Bao Gu stood, rapidly directing the array mages to scan the surrounding world and confirm whether they had returned to the Wasteland Heaven Realm.
Ba removed her hands from her face and sent her divine sense out to seek her cauldron—only to discover that her connection to it was gone.
Her first thought:
Did we go through the wrong gate?
Her second was to check where they were.
When the scanning arrays began returning images, the cultivators on board burst into wild cheers and sobs, half mad with joy. Even Bao Gu trembled uncontrollably, losing her composure.
Ba knew then they hadn’t gone to the wrong place.
She viciously pinched her own thigh and cried out,
“Where’s the cauldron my dad left me?”
She grabbed a cultivator manning the main console.
“Find it. Find my lair. Now.”
Of course, the poor cultivator didn’t dare refuse her. He quickly projected an image of where the Archaic Mountains used to be.
Ba took one look and nearly went stupid.
A dead desert where not even grass could grow.
What kind of joke was this?
She nearly beat the cultivator on the spot.
“Using a patch of sand to trick me—are you kidding me!?”
Seeing her expression, the cultivator quickly pointed out surrounding landmarks and explained that this really was where the Archaic Mountains had been. Five hundred years could turn seas into mulberry fields; turning mountains into desert wasn’t impossible. To prove his point, he added,
“Back when you first emerged, didn’t the Archaic Mountains go from a thriving region to—”
He cut himself off under Ba’s glare, not daring to finish the sentence.
Ba thought of the past and, afraid that Bao Gu might remember and hold a grudge, guiltily glanced over—only to see Bao Gu dart up to the relay teleportation array, swiftly carve in a set of coordinates, and step into it to leave.
Ba couldn’t care about anything else. At the moment the teleportation array lit up, she dove in, seized Bao Gu’s arm, and yelled,
“Don’t you dare leave me behind!”
